Roger Federer, at 35, wins Wimbledon for a record eighth time

Source: The Washington Post

By Chuck Culpepper July 16 at 11:01 AM

WIMBLEDON, England — Roger Federer, who won Wimbledon at 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 30, won it again Sunday at 35, further cramming his name into a men’s tennis record book in which it appears almost as rampantly as it would in a biography.

With his 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 passage through the sporadically scary but diminished Croatian, Marin Cilic, Federer not only surpassed all other male Wimbledon champions with his eight titles. At 35 years, 342 days old, he became the oldest Wimbledon champion in the Open Era, as well as the oldest Grand Slam champion, a category in which he surpassed the 2017 Australian Open champion Roger Federer.

Even all that wouldn’t cover the milestones, as it seldom does with Federer. He also extended his Grand Slam title total to 19 to arrange an arrival in New York in late August with a stunning yet realistic chance at 20, which would have seemed farfetched only six months ago.

Back in mid-January, Federer had just come off a six-month hiatus in deference to a left knee that kept yelling for attention on court while he tried to plot strategic points. With that knee rested, Federer up and won the Australian Open from a No. 17 seed, and set off on a year he has called “a fairy tale.”